“Let ’im pass.” Jeremiah leaned against the wall and stirred his coffee with the ass-end of a pencil. His voice was all Legion’d out and his canes leaned against him. “Lester’s fadin’ fast. We’d best respect that, eh, Torchy?”
The Inuk’s eyes flashed to his left and Jeremiah gave him a look: one that said he had a plan they’d already agreed to. Fuck these guys: Jeremiah was one of the Bay Boys who’d come up and never stopped running the north. The Bullfrog had worked out a sweetheart deal with the GNWT to hire the “worst of the worst” convicts and get them working for the town on day release. Everyone knew Jeremiah ran a tight ship and he fined his workers for the tiniest things. Chances were, if you worked for the Bullfrog, you were broke all the time, but you worked off your time faster than if you were in the pokey. “Nigger work” he called it, which didn’t shock anybody coming from him.
The Inuk stepped back and I moved around him. The Inuk liked that a lot. In fact, as I passed him, he growled like a grizzly and the Smith Squad erupted in laughter. I did not want to tangle with this guy: I had a bad feeling about him and got the sense that with my TB fatigue, he had a few moves I couldn’t get out of or break away from.
“Not yet,” the Bullfrog said to the Inuk as if calming a bear with his voice, and I glanced at the Bullfrog’s canes and black coffin shoes, as I always did, and made my way into the hospital. And I saw something else: the look Country gave his daddy was one of hurt and scorn – Jeremiah had a new favourite in his crew and his little Pollywog wasn’t it.
Anyhow I could feel the gloom as soon as I walked down the halls and the first thing I smelled was a hot wave of piss and bleach. A sure sign that death was here to stay….
I walked down the hallway that Sfen painted a mural on. Of all the ones that he’s painted around town, this is my favourite. On it, there are twenty-seven geese flying south. If you look at it closely, you can only see the geese. If you look at it from the spot where he painted two footsteps on the floor down the hall, you can see that the geese are the outline for an old woman with her braids blowing in the wind. It won him a lot of praise and even more contracts for logos and murals. Sfen chose twenty-seven because that’s how hot it was the day I was born: twenty-seven degrees.
I touched the last one that signalled the tail end of her braid as I rounded the corner. “Hi, Sfen. My dearly departed brother.”
The hallway outside Lester’s room was filled with a few tables from the community centre that were packed with food, coffee, cookies, tea, bannock and apple juice with a pile of paper plates and cups for family and guests waiting together in round-the-clock shifts. Lester’s room was the last on the wing, and I knew that this was where the hospital sent their terminal cases. It was here that they sent my mom when she decided to drink herself into the grave, and it would have served Sfen had he toughed it out. It looked like Lester’s family and friends had been camped there for a while. There was a bunch of sad lookin’ Natives in the hallway. I made my way to his room. His Auntie Sally wept into her hands, her hair hung over her face. I quickened my pace. Shit. Was Lester already dead?
Sally wiped her eyes and pointed to the open door. I knocked, and his uncle waved me in. It was dark in the room, so I made my way in. I smelled the cancer – sweet and high – before I saw him. And there he was: my first knockout and my greatest guilt. Lester.
As his uncle passed me and gave me a grim nod, the only things propping Lester’s skeleton up were a lot of pillows. Lester barely had his head up with his eyes open. He looked green, like he hadn’t seen sunlight in years. He had this pained look on his skinny face, and my legs ached as they always do when I see suffering.
Lester’s mom was sitting next to him holding a Bible. There were Dene elders perched in their chairs all around the room. One lady was knitting and they all looked beat. There was no hope left in anyone’s eyes. There was a lone candle burning in the room. It was scented and smelled of berries, probably to cover the smell of Lester being eaten alive from the inside. Although the room could hold two – maybe three – patients, the hospital had given the entire room to Lester and his family.
Lester’s mom, Vivian, called me over and whispered, “My boy doesn’t have long. He keeps asking for you.” She motioned for everyone to clear out of the room and they did, but not before they all took turns giving me the evil eye. Maybe they knew.
Maybe they knew that I was responsible for Lester being the way he was, for not having as bright a life as he deserved. I never figured out why he ended up working for the Bullfrog: digging ditches, tarring roofs, replacing shingles, putting up Christmas lights on the power poles, because he wasn’t a convict. He didn’t have a mean bone inside of him. He was just simple, had seizures, is all. The room fell quiet and I looked around. Lester had a pile of tubes out his nose and wrists.
“Lester,” I said quietly. His eyes flickered a bit.
I spoke a little louder. “Lester, it’s me. Torchy.”
There was another flicker. Lester was skin and bones, man. Rough. I covered my nose so I wouldn’t smell him and looked away. What the hell was he holding on for? I wondered.
Lester was quiet, too quiet, and I wondered if he was already dead. I started thinking about leaving when he started to whisper. “Torch….”
I had to lean in close. I took off my jean jacket and pulled a chair up to his bed. “I’m here, buddy,” I said.
“Torchy,” he whispered. “You alone?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Everyone’s gone.”
He started to smile. “Thanks for coming.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry this is happening.”
“Not scared,” he swallowed. “I’m not scared.” His chapped lips were so dry; his skin looked like paper.
“Priest told me not to be afraid.” Lester slowly reached up and touched the gold cross he had on a chain around his neck. “There’s no pain where I’m goin’.”
I nodded. “That’s good.”
He nodded, caressed the cross with his finger and tried smiling. “Heard you’re a dad now.”
I looked at him. “Yeah, sort of.”
He then drifted off to sleep. I watched him and looked at all the gear they’d had him hooked up to. How on earth anyone could look after any or all of these machines and wires was beyond me. I remembered that Lester’s family was Mountain Dene from Tulita. The thing about the Mountain Dene was when someone died, their tradition was to keep one thing of theirs and to burn the rest. Lester’s head started to drop to the left when he jerked suddenly and said, “I wish I had kids.” I started to breathe through my mouth.
His eyes fluttered under his eyelids. “Heard you’re helpin’ Snowbird out.”
“Yeah,” I said. “The old man needs help.”
Lester quit smiling. He went still, quiet. I couldn’t let him though. I hated the silence that started to fill the room like diesel fumes. Something told me I had to move fast before he slipped away. “What’s up?” I asked. “What can I do to help?”
“He cured my cousin,” Lester said.
That got me. “What?”
“Too bad he couldn’t see me, but it’s too late, I guess.” I looked at him, swallowed, and said nothing.
“I need you to do two things for me,” he said. “Can you?” I thought about it. Shit. I didn’t need this. I needed money for grub. I was broke, had maybe five bucks and change to my name.
“Torchy?” he called again.
“Yeah,” I said. “Still here. What do you need?”
“Did they tell you what I have?” he asked.
“No,” I bluffed.
“Cancer of the heart,” he said.
I hadn’t heard that. I had just heard it was cancer. “I didn’t even know you could get that,” I said.
“Me, too,” he whispered. “I got it. Full-blown. I know where I got it too, and I need your help.”<
br />
“Go on, buddy,” I sighed. “What can I do to help out?”
“Big meeting today,” he said. “Town hall.”
I’d heard something about it on the radio: mayor announcing that a bunch of prospective homeowners from across Canada were considering moving to town, and that we were to all extend the glad hand and welcome them here.
Lester swallowed hard and let out a loud burp. I sat up and moved back. “Sorry. It’s the… pills. The town bought all these people one-way tickets to check out Simmer. The deal is if you buy a house, the town buys the second ticket home to pack up and get back here.”
“Pretty smart,” I said.
He nodded but stopped smiling. “You gotta stop it.”
“What?”
“The meeting. You gotta stop it.”
“Why?”
“She’s a death trap,” he whispered.
“What is?”
“The new subdivision. She’s contaminated.”
“With what?”
He got ready to burp again and I prayed he wouldn’t vomit. He let out a moan and tried looking left towards the small table by the bed. “There any ice left?”
I was shocked. It was summer. Did he think it was winter? “You mean on the river?”
“In my cup,” he whispered. “Did my mom leave some?”
I looked around and, sure enough, there was a Dixie cup filled with ice. Most of it was water, but there were a few ice chips.
“Please,” he said, “run some ice along my lips.” I picked up some ice. I wasn’t crazy about it, but his lips were cracked to the point of looking plastic and split. I ran the ice cube along his lips and saw how handsome Lester used to be. Whoever had shaved him had missed a slice of stubble. There was a perfect triangle of hair under his chin down to his Adam’s apple, which rose and fell as he slurped. His breath smelled sweet. Too sweet. There was that small golden cross on the chain and I shook my head: there you go, again, God, I thought. Takin’ a good kid too soon.
Lester nodded he was okay. “It’s going to kill my mom,” he said. “Me dyin’.”
“Come on now.” I said. I looked around and saw pills, magazines, books of crossword puzzles and the air was thick, stale. “Got any chap stick?” I asked.
“Ice is better.” He opened his eyes briefly but then shut them, letting out a pained moan. “Oh, the light hurts me, Torchy. My eyes hurt. Can you ask the old man to pray for me?”
I looked around and saw the Bible on the table beside his bed. What was the Bible verse Sister Regan always quoted to me and Sfen? Proverbs 4:14-16.
“Torchy?”
“Huh?”
“Can you ask Snowbird to pray for me?”
I nodded. “I will.”
He seemed suddenly out of breath. “Candle’s fine. I’m okay. I’m okay. Ask him to pray for my mom, too. I don’t want to leave my mom.” Then he faded.
I waited, looked around. “What’s that land contaminated with?”
He spoke again: “Uranium. The government used Simmer as a transport route to the States.”
I’d heard something about that. “Go on.”
He started to wheeze a bit before going on. “We helped clear out that subdivision for the mayor. We found uranium rocks everywhere. They told us not to touch ’em. The Bullfrog got us to load them up in his dump truck late at night and move them somewhere. I heard ’em talkin’ and I called Jeremiah on it that night. He told me to keep it hush hush, but there’s still lots there. I know we didn’t get it all. We couldn’t have. I just know that’s how I got this.”
That made sense. The mayor was a pretty crafty dude. It was funny how any lucrative deals always had his name included in the fine print. “How many families are thinking of moving in?”
“There’s enough lots… for twenty homes this year. They were aiming for… another twenty lots next year. It’s where the old highway used to be. I told Jeremiah he should call someone, feds maybe, to clean ’er up.”
“Uh huh. What’d he say?”
“He told me to mind my own business.”
I shook my head. “Fucker.”
He nodded. “The meeting’s at three.”
I realized what he was asking me to do. The big clock on the wall said it was 2:40. I started to shake my head. “I ain’t no public speaker,” I said.
“Please, Torchy. Think of those people. Think of the kids.”
I thought of Stephanie. “What do you want me to say?”
“Grab that mike. No one will stop you. Tell those people no one can move there. You gotta do it or they’ll all end up like me. Think of those kids. Imagine that girl of yours with cancer.” I winced. “I don’t know what I’d do if anyone suffered like me… even on the other side. I think I’d go to hell, Torch, if you don’t do this. Please.”
It made sense, what Lester said. Sfen had always called that part of town the “circle of death.” It seemed that everyone on the north end of town – sooner or later – got cancer. We noticed it when we were in our teens. Some folks moved away and were okay, but the folks who stayed were always sick. It was sad. Pick up a copy of the paper and there was always a quiltin’ bee for buddy’s wife for her cancer or a prayer circle for another person. All of them lived in the “circle.”
The new subdivision was a little west of there. I remembered trails in the bush when we’d go looking to torch-and-destroy forts. I always wondered why there were bush trails already cleared out. I guess it was for a road and it could be true that it was the road that ran through the circle of death and to an old transport route that led to the old highway.
“Torchy?” he asked.
“Yeah?”
“Will you do it?” My face burned. I couldn’t answer.
“You said you’d defend me until my dying day, ’member?” I looked at Lester and couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think he’d ever heard me promise that, but he did.
Fuck sakes. Lester was askin’ me to do something that I didn’t want to do, nor could I picture doing, and yet I’d set out to help. But I didn’t feel like walkin’ up to a show-and-tell meeting about what a great town this was and telling the mayor off. I looked at Lester and saw that candle flicker. I just knew that this was the time to make my peace with him before he found his.
The candle flickered again – maybe from the wing flutter of spirit helpers waitin’. That’s what Snowbird would say. I looked at Lester and thought, “There you go again, God, siccin’ something cruel on a good man and eatin’ him out from the inside until there’s nothing left while the drunks stagger, the junkies endure and some Indian woman is gonna do the FAS dance on the bar floor in town tonight. If you love us so much, how come you brought cancer and AIDS and everything else down here?”
“Lester,” I said. I swallowed hard. “Remember when we were kids?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
I took a big breath and decided to come clean. “Remember that day we were running towards the school and I kicked the door shut –”
“I know you’re sorry,” he said.
I looked at him. He was smiling. “How do you know what I was going to say?”
“Because every time you drink you call my house saying how sorry you are.”
I thought about it. Was he joking? “What?”
“Nobody’s got a voice like yours. It didn’t take much to figure it was you.”
I thought about it. I always wondered why I woke up on top of the phone after getting snaked out of shape. “What would I say?”
“You always said, ‘Sorry for making you retarded.’”
I burst out laughing. “No way. I didn’t say that.”
He let out a long breath and winced. “You cry,” he said. “You cry hard.”
I looked down. Holy shit. It all made sense.
“You didn’t
make me the way I am,” he said. I was quiet because he was wrong.
It was a Friday and the sun was shining. I guess you could say I was a bully and Lester was my favourite score. I never close-fisted him or nothing. I’d just push him around and slap him sometimes until he quit lookin’ so happy.
We were in grade seven and he and I were racing for the door. Okay, I admit: I loved roughing him up until he cried. I never took his money or his lunch – well, sometimes – but I wasn’t happy until he was crying. He always had nice clothes and good food. You could just tell he had a home filled with love. I hated the fact that he could read and write better than me. I just knew that while I was going without, his parents were reading him to sleep. Lester was a fast little fucker and was just giving ’er, boy, towards the door. He knew if he could get into the school, he was home free. It was one of those things where nothing is spoken but you both know that you got to get to that door or the world will explode. I knew about ten paces in that he was going to beat me, so I got this bright idea that if I drop-kicked the door shut with all my might, I’d cut him off and I could beat him up for running from me. So I launched into the air and stomp-kicked that door, but his head got in the way. I kicked that door, and that goddamned heavy fire door, it slammed into his head. And I kicked with everything I had – and I knocked him cold.
I can still hear that door slamming on his skull. Lester went into convulsions and was gurgling all over the place, and we were the only ones there. I was so scared I didn’t know what to do. If I ran for help, I’d get in trouble, expelled for sure. I panicked and didn’t do a thing. I just watched him twitch and make those horrible sounds, “Nggg nggga nggggaaahhhh,” and I thought I finished him and that these were his death kicks.
I knew enough to turn him on his side so that his mouth could empty and I waited it out with him, eyeing the door so no one saw. If anyone discovered us, I was gonna play the hero, say I found him like this, but nobody came. Payday, I guess. Everyone was home.
What scared me most were his eyes. They were like the eyes of a stunned jackfish.
Godless But Loyal To Heaven Page 10